1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recognition method and apparatus for extracting and recognizing a specific image such as disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/354,878. This invention is more particularly related to an image recognition method and apparatus which examines a characteristic of an image indicating whether it is difficult to determine whether the image is rotated during a recognition process.
2. Discussion of Background
In recent years there has been a development in the recognition of specific color images using a color image processing apparatus such as a personal computer system with an image scanner. In order to accomplish color image recognition, several techniques which recognize and detect specific images in an object image are provided in a color image processing apparatus. Once the specific image is detected in the object image, the color image processing apparatus generates a recognition result indicating that the object image matches image information in a recognition dictionary for the specific image. Such a color image processing apparatus is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/354,878.
However, it has been determined through experiments by the present inventors that, if the object image is rotated, there are problems in the recognition process between the object image data and the image information in the recognition dictionary for the specific image. For example, it has been found that in cases where the object images are rotated, consistent recognition results have not been achieved by previous devices.